1880 Oklahoma's David Lewis Payne in the Indian Territory

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A singular spectacle has been witnessed during the week on the northern border of the Indian Territory. A colonizing expedition, headed by one Payne, and consisting of recruits gathered from many states under a sort of military discipline (being divided into eight companies, with a major in command, and not lacking a chaplain), endeavored to enter that part of the Territory to which the Indian title has been extinguished in favor of the Government, and which now goes by the name of Oklahoma, from Kansas. Unfortunately they were watched and accompanied in their movements by a cavalry force across the line, whose commander warned them not to enter in defiance of the President’s proclamation. Although their answer was defiant, and they declared they would proceed at all hazards unless stopped by act of Congress, they wisely chose an east and west line of march in place of a southerly one, What made their situation all the more harrowing was the reports that at a little distance trains were going in by the fifties, while from Texas and Arkansas other squatters were entering unopposed, so that the fat of the land would be occupied before they could arrive on the scene, the fact that many of them had abandoned Western and Southern Kansas almost in a starving condition, on account of severe droughts, seemed in their eyes to establish their right to disregard the President’s authority; but their incapacity to cope with the troops gradually told upon their spirits and their organization. Payne was deposed, and a cool head among them was despatched to Washington for relief,’ Not a few among them have been convicted of previous trespassing, and have been fined for it, but harsher treatment seems necessary for these lawbreakers. They held religious services on Sunday as Cromwell’s soldiery in Ireland might have done, ad doubtless with that confidence in a kind Providence which led a ruffian’s mistress the other day in this city, after furnishing him with red pepper for the policeman’s eves, to bid him
trust in God and he would probably pull through.